The Middlesex (Enfield Division) election resulted in a great and
unquestionable triumph for the Unionists. Captain Bowles, a young and untried candidate, was elected by a majority of 1,512 over Mr. Fairbairns, the Gladatonian Liberal, who had set every engine at work to diminish his opponent's majority, or, if possible, to secure his defeat. Yet 5,124 electors voted for Captain Bowles, and only 3,612 for Mr. Fair- bairns. The numbers polled were very much larger than in 1885, when the Liberal Party was • still undivided, and when Lord Folkestone obtained a majority of 960 over his Liberal opponent. In 1886, indeed, Lord Folkestone increased that majority to 2,020; but no one who knows the constituency regards the election of 1886 as a serious fight at all. The total poll was then only 4,554, as against a total poll
in 1885 of 6,328 ; and of the abstainers in 1886, the great majority were Gladstonians who were not zealous for their candidate, Mr. Kempster, and felt a great respect for Lord Folkestone. But on Saturday the total poll rose to 8,736, or more by 2,408 than in 1885, and nearly double the poll of 1886, and certainly every nerve was strained by the Gladstonians to muster their full strength. Doubtless that full strength was actually mustered, and it was shown that the great constituency of that division of Middlesex is by a large majority strongly opposed to Mr. Gladstone's new policy, and that the people are determined to let their opinion be fully known.
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